Please, don't think they are crazy!

This just cracked me up, but it is a little weird. I walked into Isaac's room ready to say prayers and read stories and the girls were already in there playing this made up game...



What weirdos!

Then since I already had my camera, I thought I would catch Isaac walking on video again too.

Can you tell why he's not walking more? Perhaps, because the girls do everything for him. Did you hear Hannah say, "Let's just pray now" at the end of the video. I guess she had had enough of Mommy asking her to move while I videoed her brother.

Here's an adorable picture my little guy even though his eyes are closed...and he still doesn't have much hair!

Sunday Sibling Talk: Three's a crowd?

Having my second child was a breeze because she was so totally entertained by my oldest and had her big sister's full attention. I remember Genna would just lay on the floor and be happy as long as Hannah was in the same room. The only time Genna was demanding of my attention was when Hannah was still napping and Genna had woken early. Then as she got older and could really play with her sister they had a blast. Sure they argue, but in general are instant live in playmates. I assumed this would be the case for each subsequent child.

However, I am learning that three is not a good number. Someone always gets left out! Either Genna and Hannah are playing and don't want their little destroyer of a brother to bother them and the tower they are working on, or Hannah and Isaac are playing Puppy Chase and (both) get irritated when Genna tries to join in. Occasionally Genna is entertaining Isaac and Hannah tries to jump in. Genna resists this because she knows that Isaac will soon abandon her for Hannah's more appealing game. Aah! What to do!

I try to have scheduled time for them all to play together, but it never works out, someone always comes to me crying, and most often it is Isaac since the girls have been best friends for so long and they are closer in age which means they are capable of a different type of play that Isaac can't do yet.

I am thinking this could be a temporary thing. Maybe as he gets older and can pretend with them, he can be the Prince or the Monster or something to add to the game. But is it possible that that time is far far away? By then, perhaps he will have another sibling who can be his buddy. Who knows! All I know is that after seeing this trio dynamic, in the end, I want an even number of kids. :) LOL

What am I teaching the baby?

Isaac seems to need more structure to his day so that he doesn't get into trouble, so I am working on spreading out his free play time with more structured play times. Sometimes I play with him, sometimes the girls (more likely one of the girls at a time) play with him, and then sometimes he plays alone. Here are some of the activities we have been doing lately.

Puzzles- He loves to help me put them back in place and then clap for himself. Occasionally he gets one in by himself too.

Reading- He is sitting stiller for longer now and seems to enjoy books even more. He likes to pick them out himself now occasionally. His favorites are McDuff's Favorite Things, Five Little Ducklings, I See a Monster, and Noah's Crew Came Two by Two at the moment. These are all touch and feel books. He also enjoys lifting the flaps on the monster book. We always read two books before naps and bedtime as well.

Singing- He is loving the songs with hand motions these days. (I am seeing a pattern here. He's a hands on kind of guy.) His favorites to join in with are Patty Cake and Twinkle Twinkle. He loves to "Roll 'em" in Patty Cake and to do the twinkly stars and make the diamond for Twinkle Twinkle. He will even do this when the song comes on in the car all by himself.

Physical activities- We roll the ball or practice walking.

Walks in the stroller- We walk to go pick up the girls a couple times a week. He loves the stroller when we are outside, but walk inside a building and he is ready to get out. Don't know why, but he is much better at staying in the shopping cart than he was a few months ago. I wear him in the sling so often out of convenience and speed and I think he gets used to being carried around when we are shopping. He is heavy though, so I only do it if it's a fast trip into a store.

New activities- I am trying to do one new activity each week with him. In the last couple of weeks we have done a fine motor skill developmental game with pipe cleaners and an ice cube game.

Here is Isaac enjoying the pipe cleaner activity while I cook dinner.

Here is the whole gang enjoying the ice cube fun!


Isaac mostly sucked on it and moved them around with his hands, not quite able to pick them up with a spoon to move them yet.


The girls had way more fun than I thought they would moving the ice around with various tongs and spoons. Then we turned it into a science lesson and watched the ice melt at high speed when we put them in hot water. My plan was to make cucumber lime popsicles afterward to demonstrate freezing in opposition to melting, but our cucumber molded much to my dismay.


I love Genna's tongue hanging out in all her concentration!


**Isaac is fever-free now by the way!**

Our Morning Activity Sheets

As I mentioned in this post, we have time set aside in the morning before they go to school to do an activity sheet or two each weekday. Here is our rough 5 day "lesson plan" for each week. These activity sheets have to be things they can do on their own after I show them what to do so I can get ready in the morning.

ABC's/Reading and Writing- Hannah usually reads a sentence or two and traces it once. Then she practices writing it several times. Genna has about half of the Alphabet down and so she is moving through the letters she doesn't know well. I print out a coloring page with the letter, a picture of something the letter starts with, and a place to trace the upper and lower case letter at the bottom.

Numbers/Math-Hannah is doing simple addition, using dominoes or pennies. Hannah also needs to learn what the names of the double digit numbers are (i.e. teens and multiples of ten.) Genna is still learning a few of her 1-10 numbers in a similar fashion to the letters.

Tracing/Handwriting-Hannah is tracing sentences and rewriting them again here. Genna is practicing her name or does pre-handwriting worksheets with dot-to-dot pages and mazes. Her hand is not too steady yet, but she is trying hard to write her name now. She even spells it correctly, but some of the letters are backwards and she tends to put too many lines on her capital "E."

Saint Coloring Page-I am trying to pick one saint a week on his/her feast day and find a coloring page, but if this isn't possible I will just find a religious coloring sheet for that day instead. If I ever find the time, I could make my own coloring page. Big if! In the future, I want to start doing memory verses with them again. We kind of got away from that when the little guy was born. This could replace the Saint day if I can't find a coloring page for a Saint that week. One idea is they could illustrate the verse and we could hang it up for the week going over it many times a day.

Illustration/Creative Writing- Hannah writes something and draws a picture illustrating what she wrote. For Genna, I write the sentence and have her illustrate it.

The order of these depends mostly on the feast days of the Saints, so I move things around accordingly. I am keeping their work in a binder. Here they are!

Poor Baby

Isaac has been sick since Sunday night with a high fever and nothing else. This morning at 5am, his fever was 104 and it took Motrin, Tylenol, and a Popsicle to get it down. Bless his heart! I had to wake him early from a nap because I had to take the girls to Irish dancing class. So I snapped a sleeping baby picture before woke him. He's got his horsey and his crocodile next to him.


He is walking a lot more now. He tends to be braver at home, and keep to crawling more when we are out. Today he took more than 20 steps in a row. I counted that particular time because Hannah told me moments before (when I could not give her a report of how many steps he just took) that we have to count every time or we won't know how many steps he can take. Gotta love my little mama!

Such a stellar big sis!

Hannah has such a way with her little siblings. Isaac just adores her and laughs at everything she does. Their favorite game to play is Puppy Chase where they pretend to be puppies and chase each other around. All Hannah has to do is get on the floor and start barking and they are off!

Up or Down?

"Mom, I am calmed up now."
-Genevieve

Don't know if you can see the dirt all over her face, but this is what she looks like when I pick her up from school when they are out on the playground. What a mess! I have to pretty much put her in the sink to get her cleaned up enough to make it to bath time.

You gotta love this girl and her spunky personality! Today during our religious education time, she remember that the book the priest reads from is called the Sacramentary. Big word to remember when she gets up and down mixed up, don't you think? One of my favorite word mix ups of hers is "wisiping" instead of "whispering." Laughter is good for the soul, and this girl keeps us laughing!